Authors: Ben Pastor
“Yes. I thought you’d have gone to see her already.”
“I haven’t.”
“What are you waiting for? For the front to turn again?”
“It was a long relationship, Bruno. I’m in two minds about it.”
“Well, this is probably the last chance you have. A year ago things were different, but now… If it matters to you, you’d better make time to see her.”
Recalling the conversation, Bora sped as much as the road allowed. Yes, he’d have to go and see Larisa. He promised himself he’d do it. At Stalingrad, towards the end, he’d told himself, full of regret,
I’ll die without seeing her again
. Now he resisted again.
If there’s time, I’ll go.
Not that Lattmann would be sending couriers or urgent messages about private matters. When Bora reached Borovoye, just before noon, he found a small radio shack newly set up there, and his
Abwehr
colleague pacing back and forth in front of it.
The first words Lattmann said were, “Fucking hell, Bora, I’ve been chasing you all morning!”
“I’ve been busy all morning.”
“Drop
everything
. We’ve got a top-ranking Russian commander who waded over this morning from across the Donets. News came in via radio, coded and in Morse. Seems he contacted us beforehand on our radio frequency to keep us from shooting at him. Says he’s defecting.”
“Really.” After Platonov, Bora wasn’t looking for another disappointment. “Are we sure?”
Lattmann took him by the arm and led him out of the shack, away from the radio man. “Listen to this. He asks specifically for the head of our Office of Foreign Intelligence III.”
“Specifically?”
“By name. And rank. It’s possible he might know about Colonel Bentivegni, you’ll say. Well, he also speaks serviceable German, and seems to know lots about us.”
Us
meant Counterintelligence to those in it. German-speaking Russian officers were not infrequent; the generation before Bora’s had learnt Russian while training secretly in the Soviet Union during the Weimar days, and vice versa. Bora remained cautious.
“Does he. Hm. And who does he say he is?”
“
He
says he’s Tibyetsky.”
Bora felt a nervous sting down to his fingertips, like an electric shock. “The ‘Tibetan’? The one they call Khan?”
“Right.”
“Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ, we had him facing us in Stalingrad. He’s into
all
of STAVKA’s planning. Can it be…? It’d be the lucky break of the year!”
Lattmann grinned. “You’re the interrogator; you be the judge. He came rumbling up in a brand-new model of tank the Panzer Corps will drool over. Big stuff. Scherer, whom you know, was called in for armoured support in case it were a trick, and cordoned off the place.”
Other than Konev and Rokossovsky, Khan was the prize catch of a lifetime, never mind the year. To hell with Platonov and his convenient swoons. Bora could hardly contain himself. Tibyetsky was as elusive as his assumed name. (Like other old revolutionaries, he had two or three aliases.) Bora had studied him as far back as Cavalry School and the War Academy, and what Khan had later achieved at Stalingrad, at Smolensk, was legendary. Hero of the Soviet Union, awarded the Red and Gold Stars, and God knows what other medals… All hope of taking him prisoner had been out of the question. How likely was it that he should defect – and now?
If I think how he thundered over the loudspeakers while we were spitting blood in Stalingrad so we’d surrender, if I think he bowled us over just four months ago
…
“Bruno, when can I see him?”
Without being asked, Lattmann placed a jerrycan of gasoline in the back of Bora’s vehicle. He habitually chewed his nails, and his fingertips always gave the impression of having been nibbled by fish.
“Go at once. Scherer is anxious for you to get there. The Russian is still inside his tank and won’t get down until we assure him an official contact will be made with Bentivegni in Berlin-Zossen. So I checked with our Kiev people. Given the mess on the Tunisian front, Colonel Bentivegni is reported ‘somewhere’ in Southern Italy conferring with commanders there, more’s the shame. By the way, it was coincidence that Scherer and his unit were in transit to the 11th Panzer Division’s new deployment area; imagine how desperate they are to get their hands on the tank. I needn’t tell you that the
Abwehr
must have the defector first before RSHA gets hold of him; the Central Security Office would transfer him then, and we wouldn’t get another chance.” Given that when alone with Bora Lattmann usually spoke of the RSHA as “Kaltenbrunner’s thugs”, it was a sign of his haste that he’d simply called SS-Gestapo intelligence by its acronym.
Bora flew over every rut and pothole along the next twenty-odd kilometres; any forgotten landmine in the criss-cross of dishevelled lanes zigzagging between Borovoye and the river could have blown him sky-high.
4 MAY, AFTERNOON, NORTH OF NOVO ANDREYEVKA
The immediate area along the Donets, south of the ford Bora himself had used the day before, was cordoned off by troops, a sign of the importance and secrecy of the event. All around stood heavily armed soldiers and artillery from the 161st, in case it were a ruse, and, further back, armoured vehicles and three tank busters from the 11th Panzer at the ready. The place where the Russian tank had stopped was on the nearside of a slight incline fifty or so metres from the river bank, undetectable from enemy lines. On its oversized turret the commander’s cupola was open, and a man in a leather jacket and visored cap stood leaning, with his arms crossed over its rim. Distant grass fires to the east, invisible from here, caused infinitesimal flecks of grey ash to rain slowly over the scene, resembling bits of foil.
Without drawing close, Bora took a long look through his field glasses. Photos of Brigadier General Tibyetsky existed, none taken close-up since the start of the war, but he had seen several from the late ’30s. His heartbeat accelerated; Bora could feel it in his throat. Between January and June 1941 until a week before the invasion, as assistant to the military attaché in Moscow, he’d gathered all available information about the Red Army’s higher ranks, including the tank corps general most likely to give Germany a run for its money once hostilities began. It made Bora’s head spin to think of him less than fifty metres away now, on this side of the Donets. As mysterious
as his nickname, earned after his revolutionary activity in the steppes of Central Asia, he went by Tibyetsky but that, too, was an assumed battle name, like “Stalin” or “Molotov”. Bora also knew him as Petrov and Dobronin, and there might be other aliases. If this defection was a trick, it was a luscious one, a trap he longed to jump into headlong.
The Russian had meanwhile taken his own field glasses in hand, and was surveying the array of troops facing him. Eventually, he turned to the shaded spot where Bora’s vehicle was parked, and there was an exchange of stares through their respective lenses. Cinders slowly swirled in the air between them. The mound of steel and the man on top of it stood motionless behind that lingering, erratic reel of minute specks.
“It’s about time you got here, Scotsman.”
Caught up in his observation, Bora was startled by the voice nearby. A flushed and smiling Scherer stood by him. As a former cavalryman and colleague from the heady days of the invasion, like others at that time he’d referred to Bora as
Der Schotte
, because of his mother’s lineage. “He won’t deal with any of us, Scotsman,” he said, out of breath. “Look at that turret, will you?” He pointed to the T-34. “What a
beast
. The tank alone is worth instant leave to Germany. If he’s rigged it with explosives, I’m ready to defuse it with my teeth. I’m having an orgasm over that tank.”
“Well, I’m having an orgasm over
him
.” Bora put away the field glasses, dry-mouthed with anticipation. “If he isn’t Ghenrikh Tibyetsky, I’m not standing here with you. Has he said anything?” It was the same question he’d asked about Platonov; but who cared about Platonov now?
“Other than what I told Lattmann? No. Won’t let us get any closer, and threatens to blow his head off with his sidearm if we try. When we mentioned there’d be somebody from Counterintelligence coming, he answered to not try and deceive him as he’s informed about the officers working for Colonel von Bentivegni in this sector.”
“
Really
. He may be bluffing.”
“Whatever. See if you can get him to climb down.”
Bora took a deep breath. Unhurriedly he walked through the soldiers’ cordon, coming within five metres of the Russian tank and maybe a foot from the mouth of its formidable 85mm cannon. “Komandir Tibyetsky” – he addressed him in Russian – “welcome. You asked to speak to an IC officer?”
Khan let the field glasses dangle from the strap around his neck. He replied to the salute curtly. “I asked to speak to Bentivegni. Colonel Eccard von Bentivegni has to come here for me.”
“Yes, of course.” It was a challenge not showing how ready they all were to accommodate him. Bora counted to ten before adding, “It can be arranged. I’ll need a few days.”
“A few days? No.” Irritably Khan turned away. “No.”
“May I ask why?”
A fleeting pause followed, less than a drawing of breath. “My comrades’ bodies are inside this tank, and in this weather ‘a few days’ is not acceptable.”
Khan’s crewmen were
dead
? It could be true. Where Bora was standing, a burst of machine-gun fire from the gunner’s hatch would literally cut him in half. Somewhere, the instant of absolute panic turned into a kind of nervous bliss. The lazily raining ash flakes, so fragile they dissolved as they touched men and things, were at odds with the thrill of the moment. “Well, Commander, we haven’t fired upon your vehicle. How can it be that they died?”
“I shot them. You don’t suppose I could cross over with their approval.”
No; and if this was truly a defection, not with the approval of Soviet units on the other bank, either. In any case, whatever his plan, however Khan had managed to slip away, his exploit could result in a cannonade from across the Donets at any time. Bora wished his heart rate would stabilize. They were much too close to the river here. The idea of losing the prize before having a chance to speak with him was intolerable. “Three days
is the best I can do, sir.” Highly strung as he was, he tried to make light of things. “I’m not God.”
Khan still looked away from him. Clearly he, too, didn’t want to give others the satisfaction of reading his thoughts. He must suspect the German officer was striving not to betray his enthusiasm, and in turn kept silent about the reason (which must be a colossal one) that brought him here. An innovative T-34 was in itself a passport of immense value; the fact that a commander in his position had eliminated his crewmen to come across indicated a superior motive that might well require Colonel Bentivegni to fly to Rogany, or to the closest landing patch.
Bora waited for an answer, heart in mouth. The mighty armoured box, a monument to its own firepower, faced him with its tons of steel. The T-34 as Bora knew it (
tridsatchetverka
, the “Little 34”) came to less than half the weight of a German Tiger, but agility, plate and cannon made it a frightful enemy. A few steps behind him, Scherer bragged to someone about the heavily armoured cupola (“That thing is
huge
– I bet it can hold three men by itself!”). Yes, and more: beyond plate, firepower, brute size, this was the shape of things to come. Tibyetsky stared down at him with a frown, alone on his perch. But suddenly to Bora the crest of the rise behind the tank, shielding it from a river that coincided with the front, was the threshold of a doomsday vanguard. From here to the Don, to the Volga, to Siberia, behind the general, he could imagine millions of Russians lined up in multiple depths beyond it. A storm of ashes from infinite fires whirled over them. The idea of an apocalyptic herd of such mastodons surging over the top of the rise staggered him. Taking Khan away from the firing line was an absolute priority.
“Commander Tibyetsky, sir, may we have proof that your crewmen are inactive?”
“I said they’re
dead
.”
“May we have proof of it?”
Khan twisted his mouth in contempt. “No.” And then, impatiently, “What difference does it make? I could blast you like skittles by myself, if I chose to, tank busters and all. Are you Major Martin-Heinz von Bora?”
He pronounced it
Geinz
, not Heinz, but it was impossible not to blink in the face of recognition. “I’m Bora.”
“May I have proof of it?”
Bullseye. Bora knew when he was bested. “Commander, you have my word that I will expedite the connection with the office you seek.”
“I demand to speak to Bentivegni myself.”
“By all means. But it can’t be done from inside your vehicle.”
Khan took a last domineering look around, at the armed men and beyond them. From his vantage point he must have been able to see a long way, into the rolling fields and wilderness stretching between here and Kharkov. Grasping the rim of the cupola, he straddled it with his powerful, booted right leg. “Three days: I can see you’re not God.”
Bora breathlessly made a mental list of steps to take and levels of clearance to obtain. Within the next half-hour, Tibyetsky climbed down from the T-34, turned in his pistol to him, grip first (Bora checked the magazine and gave it back in the same way), and allowed German soldiers to climb in. He supervised them as they extracted one by one the corpses of his four crewmen, all shot at close range, presumably by the bullets missing from his Tokarev.